


The Moments

by walpurgisbtch



Series: Flashes From Columbia [1]
Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Gen, mention of anti semitism, mention of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walpurgisbtch/pseuds/walpurgisbtch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a part of a series of stories [most on other sites :( ] illustrating moments in the lives of Columbians.  The previous stories have all been horror, but this one is a bit of a coming-of-age story for a young girl in the Girls Patriotic League.  She visits the Columbia Home for Veterans and is forced for the first time to think about Columbia, violence, and her own political agency.<br/>The story was inspired by Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party," and moves around timelines and characters, but it mostly takes place in the game's original timeline before Booker and Elizabeth jumped ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moments

The young ladies of the Girls Patriotic League hung together the morning of the parade, excitedly and nervously chittering and chattering about whatever caught their fancy.  They were all at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh, who happened to be the wealthiest (or rather, the most free with their money and space) parents of any girl in the League.  The Cavanaughs had a backyard and garden, a tremendous luxury in the limited space of Columbia.  Even though nothing grew in the intense sunlight of several thousand feet in the air, the girls relished wandering around the statues and other stone curlicues arranged to suggest a garden space.  

.”Oh, Kitty!  Isn’t it the most wonderful day for a parade?” Dotty enthused, sighing and clasping her hands romantically under her chin.

“Absolutely, Dotty, dear!”  Kitty ran to the garden’s edge, sweeping her hat over the railing and giggling, “I can’t imagine a more perfect day for a parade!”

“Indeed,” said Florence, “It’s much better than yesterday.  Yesterday, the sunlight glittered when it hit the pavement stones.  But today, it gleams instead.”

A group of girls giggled at Florence, but Kitty frowned.

“Honestly, Florence, would you not agree that today is a perfect day for the parade?”

Florence thought for a minute, then began to pace like Socrates as she spoke, “You’re quite right, Kitty.  Today is a uniquely perfect day for a parade.  While we’ve never had a rainstorm in the history of Columbia, nor snow nor hail, there is something in the air today.”

The League heard Florence begin, and some began to circle around her, anticipating some more devilish amusement from Florence.  

“Indeed, there is some scent of blueness and, perhaps, sunshine in an utterly unique combination that has never happened before or since.” 

Florence stopped fast in the middle of a ring of girls.

“I feel confident in saying that today is the only day in the history of the skies that we could have ever had a parade.  I will go even further and say that we should never again host a parade, for today will never happen again.  So enjoy this parade, girls, as it shall be both perfect and final!  I’ll write to Comstock immediately to let him know.”

The girls laughed and applauded.  Kitty smiled in spite of herself.

“Really, Florence!  You’re absolutely terrible.”

Florence ran over to her and took her arm, “Oh, I know, Kitty!  You tell me often enough.”

Kitty smacked her on the shoulder, “You’ve absolutely deserved it every single time!”

***

While the girls giggled and chattered, Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh stood in the solarium together watching the girls.  A dowdy servant entered, refilling the Cavanaughs’ coffee cups, which were sitting on a nearby table.  The Cavanaughs didn’t notice the servant entering or exiting.

“Edith, I think we must take the possibility very seriously at least.”

Mrs. Cavanaugh laughed and then walked over to pick up her coffee cup when she heard the solarium door shut.

“Percy, everything is quite safe, I’m sure.”

Mr. Cavanaugh stared at Mrs. Cavanaugh for a while, but said nothing.  He walked closer to the window and watched the girls chatting and playing in the garden.  He liked to host the Girls Patriotic League at the Cavanaugh household; the girls were so young and innocent that even their troubles seemed purer, more elegant in their simplicity.  When he found one of the girls crying a few months ago, he had been able to take her into the kitchen for cocoa and conversation.  The explanations and the advice came so easily.  Percival had felt wise, in control of life.  

He smiled as he looked at the League skipping and fighting, laughing and singing.  Percival was a prominent politician, and his wife a famous socialite, but he still felt more at ease in the company of those teenagers than his peers.  Percy sighed, and held his hand out so that Edith could place his cup of coffee in it.  

The danger was the same, teenage girls and grown men alike.  Bombs and bullets didn’t account for innocence or experience.  And yet, he envied the youth in those girls.  Their worst demons were all in their heads -- he could relax them by pointing to the reality of the situation.  But once you got older, then reality itself became a horror.  

“”Percy, please don’t spoil their parade with all your worries and anxieties.  Let them enjoy this,” Edith said as she handed Percival his coffee, “This will be a good day.”

Percival smiled at Edith and kissed her hands.  He turned back to the window.  In this universe, Edith was mostly right.  Some serious violence broke out at the parade, and the Lamb was kidnapped and disappeared without a trace.  Columbians mourned for weeks, and the city became a ghost town within one generation.  The city fell out of the sky, landing in the Pacific, within 50 years. 

***

“Now, girls,” Miss Kahn said on the Cavanaughs’ wide wooden porch, “This parade is a great opportunity for the Girls Patriotic League to really show Columbia what you young ladies can do for America!  Aren’t you proud?”

“Yes!” the girls cried in unizon.

“Wonderful,” Miss Kahn said with a smile.

Miss Kahn was 45-years old, with a mouth full of pearly teeth and bright, pretty eyes.  She was a Columbian patriot, a tireless school teacher and governess, and a fixture of her community.  Despite this, most Columbians were nervous about her Saxon last name.  They felt that her work with children fit the matronly qualities of her race and its  _ Frauen _ , but they kept their distance from her outside of her work.  This suited Miss Kahn just fine.  Few in Columbia knew what kind of Germans had names like “Kahn,” and  Miss Esther didn’t want anyone to do any kind of digging into her background.

“Now, I want you all to break off into groups and, within your groups, take care of some of the things we need to have done before the parade.  Here’s the twist, girls.  You, in your groups, are going to tell me things you think you need to do.  This is your league, after all!  Get to it.”

The girls positively jumped into their groups, bouncing and skipping in delight.  They were filled with a sense of civic participation.  Normally, women in Columbia were the mothers of productive citizens and the creators of patriotic, hygienic, and modern households -- and so, they were still productive citizens and an essential part of Columbia.  But unmarried girls were left out of the civic body in a way that deeply distressed them.  They were non-people until such time as they were administering a virtuous, modern family and house with all its associated domestics.  

The 24 girls separated into 5 groups.  Miss Kahn smiled at the Cavanaughs, seated on elegant chairs, while they all waited for the girls to debate.  She didn’t walk over to them.  She moved into the crowds of girls, weaving between them.

“Hello there, Anna, Willie, Chris.  How are you doing?”

“Kitty, Dotty, Florence, what kinds of things are you planning?”

The girls were clapping in excitement, “Oh, Miss Kahn, Miss Kahn!  Wait ‘til you  _ hear  _ what we’re planning!”

One group decided that they would make and sell corsages and boutonnieres.  Another group volunteered to perform their old majorette routine, with one girl, Wilhelmina, promising to contact the administrator in charge of floats to arrange it all.  One set of girls wanted to sell each other off in an auction, which Miss Kahn vetoed.  She suggested a basket lunch auction instead, to which the girls agreed.

“Right, girls, that’s all very well,” Miss Kahn said as she stepped away.  She joined Kitty, Dotty, and Florence.

“Now then, little ladies, what have you decided to do?”

Dotty pouted and rolled a mournful gaze over to Florence like a marble along a wood floor.  Florence twitched her mouth, but said nothing.

“Well, Miss Kahn, we’re not totally unanimous,” Kitty said, pointedly not engaging with Dotty and Florence.

Miss Kahn frowned.

“Oh, dear.”

“Yes, but it isn’t all bad!” Kitty said.

“No, not at all!” Florence chimed in, “Being of different opinions just means the League has those many more options, wouldn’t you agree?”

Miss Kahn sighed theatrically, “While you’re right, a wide variety of options is far less valuable than a few good ones.  We are somewhat pressed for time, as you may recall.”

Florence began to smile, but quickly snuffed it out.  

_ Indeed, today’s the only day we could ever host this parade! _

Kitty suggests that the girls do song and dance numbers for donations, with a preference being made for romantic ballads and music with medieval inclinations.  Dotty, however, decides to do just a dance number because she and the other girls are talented tap dancers.  Florence has the nagging urge, like an ember in her soul, to go to the Columbia Home for Veterans and bring them flowers.  Miss Kahn sees them all as viable ideas, and so each plan plays out, forever, looping in infinite universes, continuing to this very moment (as though the words that made the plans were magic spells).  

However, Florence was only a necessary presence in one of the plans: her own.  So, Florence only ever goes to visit the Home for Veterans; perhaps the nagging ember in her soul was a universal constant, like a man and a lighthouse.  Or, more likely, to be Florence means to be drawn to visiting the Home for Veterans.  It is mysterious and dangerous, and the trip calls to the part of her soul that can only exist when she is alone, the part that is intrepid, afraid, lonely, and raw and open.  Florence is always going to the Columbia Home for Veterans.

***

The Columbia Home for Veterans is a tremendous Victorian house, looming and shadowy.  It was proposed as a mansion for R. Lutece when Columbia was first built, but, unfortunately, the narrow Victorian rooms and razor-slicing hallways were not conducive to scientific endeavors.  The house remained empty and in between owners until the Boxer Rebellion.  While no Columbian personally fought in the Boxer Rebellion -- preferring, as was their way, to impersonally rain fire down like the God of the Old Testament -- all those Columbians of fighting age became popularly known as “veterans.”  Any “veteran” who became disabled or simply inelegantly old was taken to the new institution in the old house: the Columbia Home for Veterans.

Of course, the ongoing conflict with the Vox Populi did begin to people the Home with violently injured veterans, but Columbians were the victims of ongoing double-think in regards to the Home.  On the one hand, they would all loudly proclaim, to the man, that every Columbian veteran in the Home was worthy of the highest honors, especially when they had done that which  _ dulce et decorum est.   _ But at the same time, and never expressed out loud, most Columbians had a nagging disgust and distaste for the Home.  By loudly proclaiming their support for those perfect, imaginary veterans, the citizens of Columbia managed to avoid ever having to actually engage with the reality of the Home.

And what an unsweet and indecorous reality it was.  Florence tilted her head back to take in the entirety of the Home, which left a great shadow to stripe her dewy, moon-bright face.  Florence chewed her lip as she walked up stairs to the porch of the home.  She began stroking the rose petals in her basket unconsciously as she looked at the rough, splintery, greenish wood.

_ This will all be fine, Florence.  You will be fine.  Everything is fine.   _

She slowly came to the door.  There was a candle burning in a sooty glass container right next to her face, and it distressed her.  It was still nine in the morning, and Florence didn’t know if the burning candle indicated that there was no staff, there was a lazy staff, or some other, more grizzly option that she couldn’t even imagine.

Florence set her basket down and pulled her white gloves on.  This was her moment.  She balled up her fist and raised it at the door, hovering over the wood for a moment before going to resolutely pound on it.

_ Hell!   _ Florence thought immediately,  _ Twice-blasted fool, ladies gently rap with their knuckles.  They absolutely never pound things with fists.  Absolutely damnable fool! _

Florence stewed in her horror, but no one came to the door.  On the other side of the thin wood, passing through the foyer and the entry hall, no one was waiting or listening.  

Minutes passed, and Florence gathered her courage again to gently rap the door with her little knucklebones.  Still no answer.  She began looking around the porch for a clue, or maybe even a key.  She walked around a little, checking under railings and finding only splinters.  The air was too thin and the sun too intense to allow for either mold or spiders.  But, dangling from the ceiling, next to the door was a single, ratty, velvet rope.  It wasn’t ostensibly connected to any bell, but Florence resolved to give it a tug.  She delicately took the rope, lifting her pinky like a lady, and pulled it and two beams of the roof down.  

Florence shrieked and fell back, tearing the hem of her skirt.  She sat on the porch, picturing herself wailing dramatically and sobbing.  She felt an urge building up in the bottom of her belly to scream and shout and demand someone come and save her life immediately.  

“Oh, my,” she whimpered.

Inside the house, old Mrs. Putnam heard the crash and immediately came out from the kitchen and began stomping through the winding hallways towards the source of the noise, moving relentlessly on towards Florence in a way that would have made her terrifically nervous if she could have seen the charging Mrs. Putnam.

“Get out of my way, Philip!” Mrs. Putnam growled as she barreled past Philip, the middle-aged assistant in the home (the only one besides Mrs. Putnam), who was sheepishly hiding behind a corner holding a pot of tea.

She thrust her eyeball against the peephole of the door, searching for the source of the disturbance.  Young Florence was sitting on the ground, with the white sleeves of her League uniform having fallen to expose the Baroque curls of her neck and collarbones.  Mrs. Putnam sneered and opened the door.

“How’d you escape from Finkton?”

Florence looked at her blankly, “What?”

“Workin’ girl like you could only be bred in Finkton.”

“Oh!” 

Florence took a moment.  Was this shame?  Is this what shame felt like?  Was she mad?  She began to turn red, which inflamed Mrs. Putnam as well.

“Now get out of here, ya tart!  These veterans have been through enough already.”

Florence stood up and brushed the dirt off her skirt with vigor.

“Now, look you here, I am a member of the Girl’s Patriotic League!  I came here to bring some roses to the veterans of the Columbia Home for Veterans because it seemed nice.  Well, rather, it is a part of my civic duty, you know.  I came here to do that.  The duty.  To bring the roses to veterans!”

As she spoke, Florence stomped over, avoiding the (imagined) exposed nails on the wood beams, and took the rose basket up with a snatch.  Florence stood before Mrs. Putnam, with a hip thrust out in saucy contrapposto and a basket full of dusty roses.

Mrs. Putnam appeared to Florence to be a dowdy, mousy looking woman.  Her hair was a soft brown and in a simple, inelegant bun.  Her clothes were plain and dark colored, and her face was tanned and lined with wrinkles.  As if each flaw she noticed in Mrs. Putnam was a breath of air and confidence, Florence felt as though she were inflating before the shrinking, plain Mrs. Putnam.  Florence could not see that Mrs. Putnam’s husband, whom she had never loved, had been one of the first to become injured and die as a result of the Vox Populi.  She also couldn’t see that Mrs. Putnam had only ever loved one person, a dark-haired nurse named Agnes she had met back in the Sodom Below when she was a young girl with an army general for a father.  

“All right then.  Don’t make a mess.”  

Mrs. Putnam turned and walked away.  Florence looked after her a moment, baffled beyond her ability to say, and then walked in.  The moment she stepped over the threshold, she was overwhelmed by the stench of soot and the dark, sickly feeling of the air within the Home.  She closed the door behind her, and felt a dim awareness growing like a candle lighting in the back of her head.

***

Philip was in the main dining room of the Home, pouring out the tea for its six inhabitants.  He smiled at each of them in their turns.  His smile was warm and perfectly composed on his handsome, gentle face.  Philip was fat, but he was elegant and calm in demeanor, even if he was a touch phlegmatic at times in movement.  He didn’t see Florence walk into the room until she was almost brushing his elbow, but he almost fell in love with her when he did.  He certainly fell into a stranger-love for her, where he was instantly aware of her face and the way it showed the quiet, intense feelings and thoughts Florence had.  There are timelines where Florence and Philip fall in love, get married, and escape the collapse of Columbia.  There are others where they live happily together and raise Columbian children.  Florence looked up at Philip, who at the time of the looking did not actually love her, but they recognized each other’s eyes.  Within the husk of a rose seed is the beauty and richness of the grown-up thing, and the gaze they shared was pregnant and pretty with the potential of it all.

Florence cast a shy smile at Philip as she moved to the nearest table to her, where sat an older man staring into space.

“Hello, sir.  I’m Florence, with the Girl’s Patriotic League.  I’ve brought you a rose!  It’s a touch rusty and dirty, but that’s all my fault.  It’s still beautiful, I think.  Please enjoy it.”

She laid the rose in front of him.  The man flicked his eyes at the rose beneath his heavy, folded eyelids that looked like origami.  Florence started to fidget, turning her elbows in towards her waist.  

“Anyway, I would just like to thank you for your service.  It, uh, means a great deal.”  

***

The main hall was terrifically gloomy, and Florence was caught between desperate energy to try to counterbalance the burgundy walls, dark wood, and quiet and the sense that she was slowly but surely losing herself to the room.  

“Here’s a rose from the Girl’s Patriotic League!  We wish to thank you for your service.”

“Hello!  I’ve brought you a rose from the Girls Patriotic League!”

“Thanks for your service.  Here’s a rose.”

One sour-faced woman, sitting and stirring milk into her tea with her finger, snatched the rose from Florence’s hand, “Why’s it got dust on it?”

Florence smiled broadly, “It’s all my fault, really.  Some dust fell from the roof on it when I pulled the bell.”

“There’s no bell.”

“Ah, yes, you’re right.  There isn’t.”

Florence walked away.   _ I wish you could have been there to tell me!   _ was what she should have said, damn it.  She should have said that with a smile and with both eyebrows raised in a perfect expression of good-natured embarrassment.  Florence thought about how bare her shoulders were in her uniform, and starting to subconsciously scrunch them up.  How many of the old men were looking at her thin top and thinking about what was underneath it?  Florence’s skin was crawling.  She then realized that she had started to hunch and bring her shoulders together, her posture a ridiculous curve down towards the floor, like a tree overladen with shame.

But she still had roses.  She was still required to be here.  

_ Come now, Florence.  It’s time to do your duty, you silly cow.   _

But internally, she thought of the myriad ways she could dispose of her roses and leave.  No one had to know that she had been here.  She could be gone in a moment!  She surveyed the room, having given out the only the smallest fraction of her roses, but still having managed to give them to all of the people she saw around her.  Escape was at hand.  Were there really so few veterans in Columbia?  

Florence began to walk over to Philip, easily pushing past the crowded little tables.

“Hello, sir.  I’m Florence, with the Girls Patriotic League ---

“Well, hello, Florence.”

“Yes, hi.  Um, I’ve brought you a flower.”

Philip raised an eyebrow, and reached one hand out to take the rose that was offered.

“Thank you, Florence.”

“It’s, um, technically for the veterans, but I wanted to thank you for your service to them on behalf of the League, you know.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you!  How nice.”

“Yes.”

Florence looked at Philip, her eyes twitching around the room.

“Could you also, maybe, take this rose to the woman who showed me in?  I don’t know where she went.”

“Oh, Mrs. Putnam,” Philip said with a half-smile, “Yes, she went back to the kitchen.  I’ll bring one to her.  Thank you very much for what you’ve done.”

Florence smiled, “It’s no problem at all.  I’ll show myself out.”

Philip nodded his head, and turned away.  Florence nodded to herself, walked ten feet, and let out a sigh, not realizing how quiet the room was.  She left the cluster of tables, walking towards the wall for an easier exit, when a man called out from in front of the fireplace.

“That was quite the sigh, miss.”

Florence looked over to the fireplace, and the man sitting in an addled and patchy armchair.  He wasn’t looking at her.  She couldn’t even see his face, only his elbows and knees peeking out.  She turned and began to walk swiftly away.

“I haven’t got my rose, miss,” said the ashy baritone, graveled with what sounded like years of tobacco.

“Oh, you haven’t?” Florence said, “I’m sorry.  I honestly didn’t see you.”

She walked quickly next to the arm chair and stuck out a rose.

“Thank you for your service, sir.”

The man chuckled in the chair.  Florence could see him now, in the flattering glow of firelight, and was bewitched.  The shadows on his face were dramatic and craggy, and his bone structure was rough and beautiful.  He had what she imagined was a Norse kind of face -- vibrant, wild, and picked and pecked at with marks and scars.  He looked too rough to be what good Columbian girls thought handsome, but Florence’s heart began to pound and her chest felt like it was swelling with feeling.

“Would you like to hear about my service?”

Florence nodded, “Yes, very much!”

The man looked her over with brown eyes, “What’s your name, Miss?”

“Florence, sir.”

“Sir?” He laughed, “No, no.  I’m Max.  Call me Max.”

“Of course, Max.”

“You ever been to America, Florence?”

“Um, no.  I was born in Columbia.”

“Huh,” Max said, stroking his bearded chin, “You go to those Columbian schools?”

Florence nodded.

“Speak up.”

“Oh, yes.  Yes, I do.”  She honestly hadn’t even considered that was something anyone needed to ask about.

“You ever heard of the Indian Wars back in America?”

Florence nodded, “Oh, yes.”

“Don’t tell me what you heard,” Max said with a twitch along the corners of his mouth, “I met enough Columbians to know that they lie to you all every day of your lives.  But that’s where I got my start as a soldier, back in the Arizona territory.”

Florence felt her blood rising, “Really?  Like, in the West?  What are the lies?  What’s it really like?”  

Max looked over at her, leveling his eyes at her face, “Better than here.  The towns are small, dirty, and ugly.  The settlers are coarse and ignorant, but they’re honest and they believe only what they see and know.  It’s violent, though.”

“Oh, my,” Florence whispered.

“Back in the West, everyone is always trying to kill everyone else.  If you kill an Indian down there, it ain’t because you think they’re inferior.  I know too many people killed by Indians to think that Indians are any less smart and human than we.  I’ve killed too many, too.”

“What?”

“I met an Indian boy once, must’ve been 20 or so, out on a mesa when I was grazing some horses.  He was scouting, or maybe even on a walk.  But he saw me, and I saw him, and we both froze.  We locked eyes immediately and began to pull our weapons out.  I would’ve given anything in the world to be able to just walk away peaceably, but I knew that wasn’t an option out west.  If you meet someone, you have to kill them first.  It makes you numb, less scared.  That’s what violence does, girl.  Numbs you to fear.”

Florence looked at the floor.  Why was he telling her this?

“I blew that boy apart.  Shot ‘im in the eye.  I think about him a lot now, just because I thought nothing of it then.  Only when I came here, retired, did I start to think about what that boy might’ve had that I took.  I think about him every day now.”

“What changed?” Florence asked in a deeper voice, too moved to still speak in the same nervous, chesty voice that took so much out of her.

Max looked honestly surprised at her for a moment.

“Nothing in particular.  It built up slowly.  One day you realize you’re more dead than living, and you start to think about things a little more.  I was a politician here in Columbia for a while, and I even was one of the strongest voices calling for us to attack Peking.  I was  _ with _ a woman, though, when the actual attack happened.  Didn’t hear the screaming, didn’t see the chaos.  I guess that was the change.”

Max ran his fingers through his thick, grey hair and began massaging the top of his scalp.  Florence slowly sank to sit next to the chair, gracefully tucking her skirt in beneath her. 

“Yeah, must’ve been it.  When they told me we had done it, when we seceded from the Union, I felt swept up in a politics of enthusiasm I didn’t understand.  I was an old soldier.  I knew what violence looked like, and I paid a price in my soul.  These folks didn’t.  They never would, either.  When the Vox came, I thought it would change at least a little.  Maybe add some maturity and worldliness to the discourse, but I guess not.  Comstock built a worldview for the psychotically violent, sheltered and raised up above the human costs.”

Florence was staring into the fire as Max spoke.  When she heard him finish, she drew in a shaking breath.  She tasted salt.  Where did it come from?  She touched her mouth and felt her face again.  She wiped away tears.

“I didn’t … You’re … I’m sorry.”

Max looked at her, and he saw her young face in the firelight.  He felt a tinge of pain for what he had done to her in his recollections.  He looked at the floor.  Max had become a being so full of pain and badness that he couldn’t be around others without polluting them as well.  He felt sick.

Florence looked at him and took his hand, resting on the arm chair, in hers.  She brought it to her face and kissed it.

“Thank you, Max,” she said.  She looked up at him with shining eyes.

Max looked at her, staring.  Florence put her head, her peach-like cheek, on the palm of one hand.  He hesitated, but then took the other cheek.

He sighed, “I don’t know why I told you that.”

She took his hands off her and stood up.

“I don’t know either, but it’s good you did.”

“Yeah,” Max laughed, but the quick chuckle could’ve been a sob.

Florence squeezed one hand, and turned away from Max, completely forgetting her roses.

***

On the walk home, Florence cut through a park.  She missed most of the parade and felt bad for it.  She had particularly wanted to see the majorette performance.  In that timeline, the float was cancelled for the day after the violent upheaval with the False Shepherd.  In other universes, it falls, air whistling and screaming around it all the way back to earth.  Sometimes the Vox destroy it, and sometimes the False Shepherd.  In an infinite few, the Chinese destroy it.  This Florence never sees it explode, and she doesn’t see any of her friends die on that day.

Florence came first to Miss Kahn’s home.  It’s was about four in the afternoon, and Miss Kahn was reading.  No servant came to the door.  Miss Kahn smiled when she saw Florence.

“Oh!  How was your trip to the Home for Veterans?”

Florence smiled slowly, with a tinge of melancholy, “It was most instructive.  May I come in for a moment?”

Miss Kahn tensed, “Oh, that wouldn’t be a very good idea, I’m afraid.  We’re having some of the rooms painted, so the entire house smells horrific.”  

She smiled reassuringly, and was surprised when Florence calmly and quietly held her gaze and studied her.  Florence looked puzzled.

“Indeed.  Well, I just wanted to ask you if you had been educated in the States or here in Columbia.”

Miss Kahn leaned against the doorframe, “The United States, dear.  Why?”

Florence nodded, “I spoke to a man from the States today.  He told me a great many things about the Indians and about war.”

Miss Kahn felt a little chill.

“Don’t worry, Miss Kahn.  I’m not going to say anything to anyone.  As I recall, you cautioned me against going to the Home, anyway.”

Miss Kahn did invite Florence into her home several months later in this timeline.  There, Florence encountered the writings of prominent Socialists, Progressives, radicals, and Zionists.  She read voraciously.  Miss Kahn eventually emigrated back to America, quietly, and became a prominent political writer and progressive.

Here and now, Miss Kahn simply nodded at Florence and wished her a good evening.

Florence came home to her mother and servants, who all asked her how her day had been.  Florence reported it had been very stimulating and instructive.  Her mother didn’t comment on the day’s violence.

“Mother, where is Father?”

Florence’s mother was spooning gravy onto a plate, “Oh, he just went out to the club with his friends, dear.”

Florence felt more at ease.  Her father was a member of the Founders.  But she thought about how her father stumbled when he came back from dinner at the club, if he came back the same evening, and she suddenly felt exhausted.  Florence looked up at her mother’s dark circles and blank expression and suspected she felt the same.

“Dinner is delicious, Mother.”

“Indeed it is, dear.”

The room was quiet and suffocatingly well-decorated.  Florence was at a loss -- for conversation, for a plan to divert herself after dinner, for anything at all.

“Mother, I --

“Yes, dear?” her mother said with an outrageously frank, plain, and blank face, hostile in its neutrality and expectation.   _ Explain yourself,  _ her face said.  Florence curdled and refused.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mother.  I think I shall go up and do some reading.”

“Oh, but you’ve barely touched your roast!”

“I’m not in the mood for meat today, Mother.  I fear something’s wrong with my stomach.”  Florence jumped up and moved to her bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind her and hanging against it for a moment.  She imagined herself bashing her head against the wall, pounding her fists, and wailing.  She wanted to be dramatic and loud and seen.  But she couldn’t, she knew that.  She dragged her open hands down the door, shaking her head no.  She couldn’t find the energy to sob or cry either.  Maybe she didn’t want to.  She sighed and moved over to her bed.  

Slowly, Florence took up stuffed animals and pillows and lace.  She went through and stripped the bed down to just the sheets and a pillow.  She then proceeded to take her hair out of its elaborate pompadour, pulling the “rats” of old hair out, and let it fall.  She took off her dress and corset and stood in front of her bed as naked as Eve.  

Florence laid herself down and turned over to her open window.  She could see through it the entirety of Columbia, the sky, the moon.  Florence breathed in and out, staring at the moon.  There, out through the window, was the entire world.  She felt all her anxieties and agonies leaching out through that window, moving into the open skies, leaving behind a vague burn in her soul.  In that moment, in all moments, Florence was angry and impassioned.  She was contented, ready.  She was everything.

 


End file.
